Inside the Star

In the jungle, civilization encroaches

Our jungle guide, Marina, turns out to be as nimble as a jaguar on these overgrown, mountainous paths, despite appearing frail at first. All afternoon, everyone in my group trails far behind her. Whenever she sees something interesting, she stops and waits patiently until we catch up. As we listen to her tell stories about the jungle, I can't help but notice her profile looks similar to the faces of ancient nobles carved in stone and painted on the Mayan temples of Chiapas.

Thick jungle surrounds the Lacanja waterfall, above, which plunges in the region of Mexico occupied by the Lacandon Mayans.

By:Craig UrquhartSpecial to the Star, Published on Thu Oct 01 2009

CHIAPAS, MEXICO–Our jungle guide, Marina, turns out to be as nimble as a jaguar on these overgrown, mountainous paths, despite appearing frail at first. All afternoon, everyone in my group trails far behind her. Whenever she sees something interesting, she stops and waits patiently until we catch up. As we listen to her tell stories about the jungle, I can't help but notice her profile looks similar to the faces of ancient nobles carved in stone and painted on the Mayan temples of Chiapas.

In this little community near the Guatemalan border, Marina is one of a small number of experienced guides who take groups on personal tours of the dense jungle in the Montes Azules Biosphere Reserve. It's a humid area of rivers and lakes about half the size of Algonquin Park, filled with exotic wildlife and the 1,000-year-old ruins of classic Maya cities. But despite the wild appearance, things have changed a lot since she was a young girl growing up in the bush.

It used to be a major trek just to get to the nearest town. Now, there are roads that don't wash out in the rainy season and most villages have electricity. Some people even have satellite phones. But for Marina the conveniences of modern Mexico are only a veneer. Her personal knowledge of the jungle's plants, animals and rivers comes from a lifetime in intimate contact with the natural world, and from a culture immersed in jungle lore for centuries. Everything in the jungle is useful to her people.

At one point on our walk, she passed around some leaves plucked from a tree as wide as a car. They smelled vaguely like sour licorice. When the leaves are boiled they make a great tonic for toothaches. She warned us not to eat the actual leaves, though, because the fibres cause serious stomach cramps. Later, when we stumbled onto a termite's nest shaped like a lumpy, overstuffed football, Marina poked a hole in the crumbly paperlike outer layer of the nest so we could see the organized army of termites scurrying through the tunnels. Within seconds, the diligent insects were sealing up the hole.

She told us that the Lacandon used to eat termites, because they're tasty, easy to collect and their population recovers quickly, so you can eat as many as you want. Apparently the thing to watch out for is the smell, as it's a little like eating garlic; everyone knows what you ate.

The Lacandon may live in intimate connection with the forest, but it's a constant struggle to keep their jungle intact. Farmers from other Mayan groups and cattle herders from farther up the Ocosingo valley are encroaching everywhere. Since the Zapatista uprising in the 1990s, non-Lacandon Mayans have taken the lead and are seizing "unoccupied" jungle. There's an unfortunate convergence between government corruption, ethnic tensions and politicians wary of offending poor, land-hungry voters. The bottom line is that economics and a Mayan culture clash may be driving the Lacandon jungle into oblivion.

After the modern world imposed a new order in the 1840s, the Lacandon suffered 100 years of abuse by loggers and "chicleros" who roamed the jungle tapping trees for chewing gum. By the 1940s, almost no Lacandon remained. The Lacandon Maya were given a much-needed boost by Trudi Bloom, a Swiss woman who lived with them and fell in love with their culture (she died in 1993 at age 92).

Bloom befriended a young Lacandon named Chan Kin, and her vivid descriptions and photographs of his life brought his culture to the world's attention. Their population rebounded and now there are about 650 people scattered in a dozen villages.

Kin fought hard to save his people's culture and environment, and today his influence is felt around the jungle. Part of his legacy is the sense of urgency that the Lacandon feel about saving their land.

Chan Kin's son, Ricardo, has an ambitious plan to help keep the jungle intact. He's using tourism to make the jungle turn a profit without cutting down a single tree. Ricardo partnered with a rafting outfitter in San Cristobal de las Casas, and now his family runs a remote campsite with cabins where visitors can taste jungle life. The whitewater rafting is excellent, but the real attraction is the Lacandon culture and people.

Like most Mayan groups, their culture tends to be communal, but in other ways the Lacandon are completely different from their neighbours. In addition to being more welcoming to outsiders, they are trying to export their environmental ethos to the world by encouraging as much contact as possible. Their attitudes are unique, even in Chiapas, given that other Mayan groups graze cattle or practise slash-and-burn agriculture.

By employing locals, Ricardo thinks small enterprises like his are the only real chance the jungle has. But he faces criticism: Some say this sort of eco-culture tourism is turning the jungle and Lacandon culture into a commodity. And there are social consequences, too. Lacandon culture was traditionally communal and now there's a growing wealth disparity.

Ricardo is unimpressed by this kind of talk. With a tiny population and a shrinking piece of real estate, he thinks making money from the jungle is the only practical and self-sufficient way to save his culture and forest.

Unless people have a practical reason to save it, he says, the jungle and the Lacandon Maya will disappear, just like the Mayan cities swallowed 1,000 years ago by the jungle.

Employment also helps keep the younger generation close to home, and in the end, jobs are the only way he can make sure his grandchildren maintain some aspect of their traditional life. Even if they have cellphones, he says, at least they'll be speaking Lacandon.

Craig Urquhart is a Toronto-based freelance writer.

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